Bible Blues

I might be biased or otherwise deluding myself, but I typically think that the Tattoo Blog does a good job of staying away from controversy within its posts. Sometimes there’s the odd hiccup in this ongoing effort, but for the most part, I’d say that tattoo blog doesn’t touch on any of the big controversies of our day that no one ever seems to completely agree on.

Well, until now. I don’t want to necessarily start a debate on here about religion, but when religion tries to somehow interfere with tattoo, then I think that we’ve got a problem and it needs to be addressed. In a recent interview, Ghanaian actress Martha Ankomah was asked why she doesn’t have any tattoos. Ankomah responded that she doesn’t have any tattoos because the Bible warns against it and that anyone with tattoos or who tattoos is a sinner.

Ahhh yes…that old chestnut. We must all do everything that the Bible tells us to do because it is after all, filled with such sage and relevant tips for life in the 21st century. Unfortunately, Ankomah tried and failed to recall the exact quote in the Bible which prohibits tattoo, but the good people at Ghana Web were able to find it “somewhere in Revelations”. They then found a different quote in Leviticus that reads:

“‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.”’

I’m not superstitious, which means that I don’t ever take what the Bible says into consideration in my daily life. I know right from wrong, I’m a good person and that’s enough for me. Furthermore, if the lord wants a say over what people do and don’t do to their bodies, well then maybe he can start winning people over by actually coming down here to earth and giving us a hand with the general chaos and agony that 95% of the frigging inhabitants of the world go through on a daily basis. Maybe then his suggestions as to what human beings can and can’t do to their bodies would be valid, instead of just sitting up in the clouds somewhere, hogging all his magic to himself.

My point here is that it is absolutely absurd to believe that getting tattooed is a sin or wrong or somehow against god. If you believe in god, then that’s your prerogative, but please don’t cast aspersions on others who choose to get tattooed. We are not sinners, we are people who enjoy art and that is all. I find it to be at the height of arrogance to tell people that what they are doing is morally wrong because of some little passage in a book that was written and rewritten thousands of years ago. If you don’t like tattoos, that’s fine, but they are not and will never be a “sin”.